Hello and welcome to my Deming's 14 points blog series. I was inspired to do a blog post every day for each of the 14 points. I am trying to keep them relatively short reads and include how I have built each one into my Start. Somewhere. system. Have a read, if you'd rather start at the beginning, April 1st is the beginning.
Encouraging Education
Professional development should be a never-ending goal for each of us. Learn something new every day if you can. Deming understood the value organizations could bring to bear by encouraging people to continue their education. Coupled with a solid training system, employees are going to be better at their jobs. Deming is very interested in building up employee's ability to problem solve. Education provides these potential growth areas to your people.
Education and Start. Somewhere.
The training structure in my systems includes recommended professional development templates. Based on what your personnel do, there are a variety of paths to take. I have three general areas of "pro-dev" which I'll go over. This isn't all-inclusive, these ideas are more related to general areas.
The first one I like to propose is very simple. Build a reading list based on skills useful to your organization. As a matter of my own opinion, leadership should be reading and already have a reading list. If anyone is interested in my reading list, reach out and I'll email it to you. Set something up to encourage people to read the books and even do a "report". Give them a gift card, or something. This is an easy way to walk people into the idea of professional development.
Next, look at professional training. Often, your local market has a few companies who hold all sorts of training. In Salt Lake City, there are a few places I have gone to get certificate type training or even just seminar type training. In a similar vein, take a look at ASQ certifications. ASQ is a respected quality leader. Their literature (I'm using to help with this series) is excellent. If you don't have people get certifications, having some of their handbooks laying around your quality department can be useful.
College can be a great motivator for people though it is a large expense to support from a business standpoint. The return on investment may be quite high if it will allow you to implement other, higher-order quality initiatives. Recall in other posts I have discussed how important it is to move up the problem tree.
Whatever method you choose, education must be a tool you employ to develop your personnel. If you'd like to discuss how some of these systems can help you, reach out. I have way too many "connect" buttons on this site, and I'm sure they all work....right?
